I am a member of four FF programs: Skywards, United, Qantas and Velocity.

Next month I will be travelling to the US and am having difficulty working out which program to allocate which flights to... I've tried, but don't seem to be able to work out anything except that United & Skywards both offer 1 point per mile, and it doesn't matter which one you travel on. Which is more generous on point redemption? I can't work this out.

The flights I have coming up are:
Per-NYC via Dubai on Emirates
and within the US:American Airlines
NorthWest Airlines
Cayman Airways
Delta
JetBlue

I would REALLY appreciate any help you could give me with working out which programs to allocate these points to.

The first thing is to see which programs you can credit your flights to (and limiting analysis to the programs you are already a member of).

Emirates (EK) will credit to EK Skywards, UA Mileage Plus and DJ Velocity Rewards
American (AA) will credit to QF Frequent Flyer only
Northwest (NW) won't credit to any of these
Cayman won't credit to any of these
Delta (DL) will credit to EK Skywards only (and only for flights on or before 31 December 2006)
JetBlue won't credit to any of these

I am assuming none of these flights listed are codeshares (which can alter things).

So the EK flights are the only ones you have a choice currently. If you booked the flights online on the EK website then skywards gives a generous online booking bonus. With the flights being reasonable distance you may end up with enough miles for an award trans-tasman or to asia. EK is relatively generous in class of service bonus, ie gives a lot higher mileage for paid business and first fares - higher bonuses than UA or DJ do.

Crediting to DJ may be useful if you can add with credit card points to DJ.

Other factors that may be relevant to you - if you are close to having enough points to get an award on one program, if you value the benefits of having status and can reasonably qualify.

(For status both UA and EK use calendar year. UA includes flights on any star alliance *A airline eg Air NZ, whereas EK includes only EK and Sri Lankan.)

OK, that last post may have been a little premature - I need to do more work myself before making that sort of 'information demanding' post. Am continuing to research, but still if you have any time and knowledge to share I would be most grateful. Have just found frequentflier.com - that'll teach me to search for the word 'flyer' instead of 'flier'!

You're welcome. They are lots of things to take into account as each program is so different, they suit people with various circumstances (travel patterns, other earning, priorities between awards upgrades and status, etc) differently. That is why forums like AFF are so useful IMO, get the benefit of others experience knowledge and perspective.

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